It's both, basically. A simple, self-contained mod that is also a playable map in its spare time. H5 has this nifty little feature of turning maps into stand-alone mods if you know what you're doing. I think it's because the formatting of map files and mod files is really really similar. Of course we've since gone a step further and now you need a hardpatched exe to play the map as intended.
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Meds have been adjusted, should be sane for now

In short, the duel map is a modded map with a focus on strategy and tactics. You spend 5-10 mins to level up, develop your hero build, buy artifacts, warmachines, army and then you face your opponent in neutral territory. There is no creeping, just a day's worth of preparation before a final battle.

The advantage compared to regular maps is that there are a lot more viable hero builds and better creature balance. That and the short amount of time it takes to face your opponent which might otherwise take a few hours in a normal map. Hence, duel map.
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Massive changes again, the interesting bits are bolded in the masterpost. Here's how factions play out:

First off, all classes get two free magic skills with the goal of improving your spell pool and spellcasting combos without making the heroes passively stronger. The skills come on expert so you can save one for after levelling. Orcs get two free (toned down)shatters instead.

HAVEN

Factions normally get 20k for artifacts, mentoring and warmachines. Haven gets 30k so at least 10k can go to training extra archers, footmen or priests. Priests have exchanged some hp for improved dmg so they are a more viable training choice. At expert training you can get 36 archers, 33 footmen or 12 priests. Since armies are pre-bought, you cannot sacrifice your swarm of conscripts for extra trainees. With the inclusion of DV and holy word, the magic class can make better use of its spellpower(along with regeneration/rez).

INFERNO

Demon explosion is well worth using(twice!), leap is toned down, seduction has been swapped with untrained puppet(so not possible to have two enemy-controlled units) and archdemons can relocate from 2 tiles away - Enemy front row units are no longer safe! Consume corpse is back to help the magic class and triple ballista gives a further boost to might. Magic class makes all magic choices viable.

SYLVAN

Dancers, treants and dragons go up one tier and summoning replaces destructive. Imbue arrow strategies work fine with little (or even no) destructive mastery with the return of triple imbued ballista and uncapped druid channeling. Rain of wasp swarm also a fun possibility for the druid class while summons are excellent. Worth noting that druid natural spellpower is not very high so high druids are important for them.

DUNGEON

Summoning has been exchanged with dark. Most units have a tier upgrade except matriarchs. Matriarchs get hexing ranged attack and mistresses 13 init for better use of invisibility(plus hexing). Reds are now mind immune so they are useful vs dark magic. Warlocks have an abysmal knowledge but sorcery tree helps with both mana and swift mind. Might dungeon has improved defense but is mostly offense-focused. Works well with mass spells and wm.

ACADEMY

Few changes though more spell combos are now available. Magic protection arties have been removed, consume artifact toned down and magic mirror is now accessible to all factions as a resistance upgrade(at 10% chance). Genies are no longer random casters but closer to their H4 version(haste/slow/RM/suffering/phantom). Academy 'might' class has balanced stats(25/25/25/25%) so magic remains an integral part of their gameplay.

NECROPOLIS

Vampires, liches and wights have gotten a tier up. Poltergeists have life drain and banshee wail has been boosted. Plague tent(now necro unique) has doubled tent bonus. Necro might lacks leadership and has low odds for luck but is tough and reliable.

FORTRESS

A destructive gameplay is now viable, especially now that destructive has access to firewall, fireball and armageddon. But mark of fire has its bonus halved and priests/flamelords are now 50% fire resistant instead of immune. Battleragers are a little slower, berserkers gain giant slayer, flamekeepers gain crossfire and liquid breath lasts longer. Thanes and dragons get a tier up. Units are overall stronger but fewer. Rune levels come in pairs: Exorcism vs buff steal, berserking vs ethereal, dragonform vs thunderclap and battlerage vs rez. Resources are a bit more restricted.

STRONGHOLD

Goblin defile has been improved and there is a beastmaster class alternative that favours defense over attack. Goblins will now switch sides at 25% and centaur nomads have full retaliation with maneuver. Centaurs, executioners and wyverns get a tier boost. Sky daughter cannot cast chain on first turn but sacrifice allows them to cast for the next two turns. Wyvern regeneration and venom is boosted while paokai scavenger is nerfed and its bugged lightning breath has been replaced with stormstrike. Cyclopes retain ranged penalty but gain full range, making goblin throws more effective from a distance.

SKILLS

Hero attacks are now a viable strategy. Powerful blow allows two attacks per turn with improved stun and doubled damage from excruciating strike.

Preparation is easier to get and you can base your build around it.

Artificial Glory accessible to all. Morale ballistae are a thing and they also boost empathy!

Twilight accessible to all. Nice for Light/Dark casters.

Magic Resistance now unlocks a 10% Magic Mirror. Bouncy fun ^^

Luck has been reduced to 50% but critical hit can upgrade it to 75%.

Sorcery has two paths: One for mana and swift mind, another for counterspell and distract.

my game was crashed and i dont know what i have to do. its do for me: creautrevisual/gamemechanics/creautrevisual/creautres/Haven/Peasent.xdb#xpointer(/creautrevisual) has invalid or missing animcharacther.
what tis is mean and what i have to do???

Are you using Tactical Duel Map 2.3 which is uploaded in the masterpost? There should not be any errors because it's been tested, unless you have other modded maps in your maps folder(or creature mods in your UserMODs folder) that cause a conflict for whatever reason. Try with just this map in your folder and no mods and see if there are any issues. I redownloaded the map from this link to make sure and it worked normally.

EDIT:

Seems the issue was unrelated to the map after all. Please ask in a FAQ or in a new topic because I spent my time on pointless tests.

Have started updating the map again, link to current version will be uploaded soon. Here are the main changes:

First off, the hex-edited exe will return. This means that..

- 0-5% starting atb so units will actually play by order of initiative.
- Mass spells cost 90% atb so they are not as spammable.
- First aid tent heals 150hp, making it a lot more useful.
- Artificer magic protection reduced, armour-breaking improved etc.

Onward to the new changes!

MAGIC

Heroes can now learn spells without wisdom or the appropriate magic skill! This will improve your spell repertoire, giving you more options and spell combinations. To that end, untrained spells have been improved and are roughly 25% weaker than spells cast on expert. For the player's ease, there are 5 mage vaults each teaching a number of random spells of its tier. You can visit them all, then open your spellbook and see what you got! Like before, you can learn a magic skill of your choice before levelling.

SKILLS

Morale now has a 5% chance to trigger and gives 80% boost. At expert leadership, you have 25% chance for morale and this can further be improved by faction abilities as the cap has been removed!

First aid tent is back to 150hp but necropolis heroes are at 290hp. Plague tent is only available for classic evil factions like necro, inferno and dungeon.

Soulfire is back for inferno! Now it causes an fireball explosion for 475dmg and can be further boosted by destructive(600dmg), ignite and shatter armour

FACTIONS

Might dungeon has felt problematic due to the nature of irresistible magic. Dungeon is great with improved might stats plus dark magic but the racial itself was not of much use. As such, the overlord's elemental chains have been boosted to 70%(warlock chains are 35%) so the dungeon units can hit really hard where they find weakness. With base stats at 10/4/7/4 and good use of chains you can even make destructive useful. Light and dark have chain potential but now destructive is a viable option too. Cold steel and fiery wrath further help in that direction.

New spell introduced, the infernal chain! (Special thanks to Marco) It works like chain lightning except it is fire based and its damage is not reduced with each jump. It does not work with sorcery so it is reserved for unit spellcasters for the time being.

UNITS

- Zealots are the new [Divine Vengeance] casters The problem with seraphs being hybrid offensive casters was that the longer you waited for enemies to get more kills, the more seraphs you would lose. Zealots work better since they are not in the thick of battle.

- Blood sisters now have [war dance]. No longer the tankier version of blood furies, they serve to soften up enemies on the front row.

- Sprites now have [pixie dust] instead of wasp swarm, which allows them to randomly bless allies or curse/dispel enemies three times. They remain the 'spellcaster' upgrade but a little more random ^^

- Sky daughters how have a variety of spells: Haste, slow, chain lightning, [infernal chain] and meteor shower! Of the latter three, all cost 16 mana. Chain lightning has the highest modifier(x30) and loses power per jump, while infernal chain has a weaker modifier(x14) but deals full damage to each stack it hits. Meteor is slightly weaker(x13) since it can potentially hit more enemies. Starting mana is 10 and sacrifice adds 22 so you can cast two high level spells in a row.

- Shadow matriarchs now have [weakening strike] so they apply -2 att/def per attack, ranged or melee.
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- Haven, sylvan and fortress now only factions with triple ballista to make up for their weaker damage.

- [Soulfire] the once crappy upgrade to consume corpse now detonates corpses for massive damage! It is improved by destructive magic, ignite and shatter armour.

- [Imbued Ballista] still resets hero turn but now he can act before the ballista shoots again.

- The unused uber_meteor_shower spell has changed into a [Tremors spell]! It still has a 5x5 area of effect but it now has an earthquake visual and sound effect. Reserved for red shamans and mummies.

- The terribly random summon elementals spell has been changed into [Raise Mummies spell]. Mummies have t6 stats, hexing attack, life drain and can cast raise dead, confusion and tremors.

- [Arcane Armour] now blocks 100% of damage but has a weaker shield(on par with the resurrection formula).

- High druids no longer have channeling. Imbued triple ballista deals plenty of damage with or without a magic class and the hero gets to act before the ballista now. Following the H4 nature theme, they now have [haste, stoneskin, basic antimagic, regeneration].

- Seaside arenas added in the battlefield area. You will recognize the places by the watery effect.

- Pao kai now have sweep attack like hydras, except their secondary targets receive half dmg. Lightning breath is bugged on retaliations and stormstrike made them too close to thanes.

- Dwarven priests also get firetrap.

- Lava dragons get fire shield at the cost of some dmg. Didn't make sense that only magmas had a shield. Both shields improved.

- Alternative champion to ghost dragons, now the Death Knight with vorpal blade and aura of fear. As a large walker it has lower mobility and also -1 init/speed compared to the dragons.

- Elvin luck now sylvan/dungeon only. Artificial glory back to academy unique. Master of animation moved to necromancy. Mana burst renamed to lightning rod and unlocked master of storms - it causes lightning to strike units that cast a spell.

And finally.. HAVEN is being redesigned to work without training To make up for that..

- Counterstrike racial improves retaliations by 20/40/60%.
- Retaliation strike(now safeguard) deals double damage.
- Ret. strike also unlocks weakening strike so it's more viable to send in paladins and have the hero punish and weaken attackers.
- Both archers full range, one precise shot, the other scattershot.
- Footmen +1 init (9)
- Battle griffins +1 init (11)
- Rush dive is instant but 50% dmg.
- Priests have greatly increased dmg(14-18) at the cost of hp(60).
- Zealots now have DV.
- Inquisitors now have prayer: +1 att/def/morale, +5% init.
- Both cavalry units +3 defense to survive the first charge.
- Seraphs now have incinerate, regeneration and immune to curse.
- Both angels +1 init/speed.
- Angels/cavalry and other 12 init units are now guaranteed to act before a hero with swift mind.

Balancing is still in progress.

Here is a LINK of the latest map and game exe. You unpack, map goes in map folder, exe goes into bin folder(C: Program Files (x86)UbisoftHeroes of Might and Magic V - Tribes of the Eastbin). Keeping a backup of the original recommended but if you lose or overwrite it I can send it to you.

Any feedback is welcome Come September I might arrange a new tourney.
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Chain lightning is now reduced by 25% per jump. I tweaked the sp modifier to keep the total damage same as before, it does less dmg on first target but the next ones in line are sure going to feel the sting!

Flaming arrows is back, minus the fire damage. It is reserved for haven, sylvan and fortress to make up for their weaker ballista. Pretty good against t7 since it negates defense.

Some new hero models/animations and minor tweaks.
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After the disappointment of H7 I decided it would be more fun to mod H5 instead. H5 is a very solid game with fun mechanics and exciting combat though often unbalanced, with far fewer viable hero builds than you'd think and many obsolete upgrades or abilities.

The hex edited exe started with deflaktor's work as a starting point and some help from polyglot and marko. The new possibilities have had immense improvements! It's an ongoing process, with the major things out of the way I'm looking into making crappy abilities worth using.

It's pretty simple, you paste the new exe in bin folder and the game recognizes the changes. The map itself contains lots of xdb edits and as long as you have it in the map folder, the changes will be applied ingame. When you take the map out of the folder and return the original exe to the bin folder, the game will be restored to its original 3.1 state.
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What do you mean by code base? If you are referring to hex changes in the exe you'd have to speak with marko since he is the one in the know.

H5.5 exe breaks the map scripts but marko got it to run, probably by replacing the exe in the bin folder and running it from there. I once tried to convert the map to H5.5 but it was too much work and I broke the game lots of times in the process. Reworking the skill system with 2-3 classes is a literal nightmare.

I will happily accept help or feedback if you have something in mind Though hero specials are mostly absent from the map because I wanted the balance to be more about the faction than the hero. I have kept a few to introduce faction unique bonuses like embalmer for necro tent bonus or jouster for retaliation strike bonus. Things like that.
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